The state chronicle. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1883-1893, 1887-03-31

NSioo ooidoc ledctlOu against tno dominant
tendencies of the preceding epoch it as
sumes the character of an organized arts.
TIC movement. We cannot acquicsce un-
reservcdly in the opinion that the classi-
| cal period of the sevent zenith century was
mere revolt against the literary wanton-
ness of the Elizabethan day Is it not a
more philosOphic solution of the origin of
c!asslcism in England to regard it as the
exhibition of one phase or form of the
modern spirit than as the expression of
mere safety of rebellion against eccen-
tricity or grotesquents IS Many who are
now in the vigor of manhood can recall
the rapturous admiration with which the
poetry of Byron was regarded by their
youthful contemporaries. Since the
American civil war his poetry has fallen
into partial oblivion with the generation
which was at the stage of childhood dur
ing that winter of our discomfort" )"
while every aspiring school girl of this
modern epoch has some acquaintance with
''ln Memoriam" and The Death of Ar
thur Yet this change of tide has come
over us quietly. perhaps unconsciously.
We see the result; We did not observe the
process. 1t may be assumed that the
change was effected in accordance with
natural law, safety or surfet not being
the principal agents in its accomplishment
''Childe Harold and "The Giaour"
may experience palingenesis at no re-
mote day, possibly the signs of revival arc
already discernible. We hold then that
the development of the classical age in
England, involving the breaking down of
our periodic syntax and the dissolution of
our ancient stanza, was not the outcome
of ii satiated fancy, but rather one form
or manifestation of the modern spirit 1t
Is Of hat l>o II.
literary evolution has been written with
SO slight regard to the corresponding phil
osophic development of English intellect.
In the sphere of pure historic study most
fruitful lessons have been learned and ap-
piled by the ObSt rvance of the relation
that ex SITS between the two phases of de-
velopment, the historic and the philoso-
phic. The sy stem of Bacon was unfold
ing during the first decades of the seven
teenth century, the era coincident with
the expansion of Puritanism, until it per-
vaded the very heart of English life. The
Baconian system claimed as one of its su-
preme eXcellencies, the effacng of those
fundamental differences which nature has
lnterposed between man aud man, the
processes of the Novum Organum were to
accomplish results by the intrinsic efficacy
OF method, not by the skill or genius of
elling was to be impartial and complete,
and in the creation of his Novum Or
ganum, Bacon unwittingly anticipated
much of the educational empirlcsm of
our own era. We discover upon critical
scrutiny that the same tendencies which
were revealing themselves in the philoso-
phlc scheme then uphdding itself, may be
detected in the character of contemporary
PurlIaniSm, as we'll as in the decay of our
ancient syntax and the dissolution of our
Olden metrical structure. 1t was the
gradual dying down of that colossal indi-
vidualism which marked the master
spirits of the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries, the anticipation of the reign of
democratic intolerance, impatient of nat
ural or acquired superiority, resentful of
esOterlc eXcluSlveneSs OF scholarly iSola-
tion. The generation that is now in the
vigor of manhood is reaping the ripe re-
suits of those tendencies that were ex-
hibited in their germinal state in the sys-
tenn of Bacon, in the dominant tone of
Puritanism, and in the transition of our
style to the graceful symmetry that was
developed to its perfection during the
century. The Revolution of
1858, the character of which has already
been indicated, assisted the process of
transition by stimulating political discus
sion, it aided in the development of read
ing public, and it brought political issues
nearer to popular apprehension. The rise
of periodical literature followed in the sue
ceeding age under the auspices of De Foe,
Addison, Bolingbroke, Swift and Steele
The development of our modern prose
forms, concise, finished, perspicuous, yet
lacking the bold individu;Lism, the occa-
slonal splendor that marks the pages of
Taylor, Milton and Brown, may now be
as complete. The great prose
poets :" who have followed nearly every
era Of poetic energy in our literary his
tory. with the rich afterglow of their
style, have in our own day af
fected the harmony of our Addsonian
era. Still, the impress of the Augustan
epoch has been so abiding that in seasons
of revolt against tradition and preceaent,
its salutary influence has sufficed to guard
against sheer wantonness and ridiculous
excess. Among the most brilliant fruits
Of its assiduous culture, in modern times,
the unsurpassed dction Of Macauley,
whose tastes and sympathies identified
him in the purest sense, with the tastes
and sympathies Of the eighteenth century
His style, though at times radiant with
the fervor and glow of the creative age
with the most susceptible
period Of his development, is an abiding
proof of the harmony, strength and sym
metry that have descended into modern
literature from the Ad,lisonian era.
HENRY E. SHEPHERD